Easy Chicken Tortilla Soup

Jan 02 2019

Authentic Chicken Tortilla Soup recipe! This easy to make tortilla soup is made with a handful of ingredients that you already have in your kitchen! I based this recipe on my favorite NYC Mexican restaurant – now I can make it healthy at home!

I love chicken tortilla soup – love, love love.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I used to get tortilla soup all the time from a local Mexican restaurant but one day I got some near closing time and it was a big disappointment It was like they gave me the entire bottom of the pot that was sitting all day long with every ingredient soggy.

I was very upset. That night I told myself I would match their tortilla soup with my own. I would set up a table outside their restaurant serving small cups of my own soup and compare it to theirs.

The neighborhood would love mine. They would put me on their shoulders, parading me down the streets while chanting “tortilla soup, tortilla soup!”. Well one of those things came true, I came up with a tortilla soup recipe that is better than theirs. *High Fives*

Dec 27 2018

Healthy Roasted Cantaloupe Salad recipe made in 30 minutes. It’s an easy savory and sweet melon tomato salad! I love this recipe for our garden Summer fruit! This salad is vegetarian, vegan and gluten free.

It’s Winter but I’m craving Summer food. Maybe it’s the cold, or maybe it’s the post holiday slump, but I am dreaming of garden fresh fruits and vegetables right now!

It doesn’t matter if it’s Winter or Summer where you are right now – you want this Roasted Cantaloupe Salad! Since it’s Winter in NYC, I’ll have to settle for store bought melon and tomatoes, but the greens will still come from our garden!

Nov 08 2018

SLOW COOKER Green Beans Recipe with Tomatoes! This easy recipe cooks fresh green beans, tomatoes, potatoes and bacon in a crock pot for 4 hours. This is a healthy dish makes for delicious vegetable side dishes that you can serve over rice or as a side dish to chicken or Thanksgiving holiday dinners. This has been become one of families favorite healthy thanksgiving recipes!

Vegetable Side Dishes

With the garden season almost complete for the year, I constantly want to come up with new recipes to try, especially those that will make yummy vegetable side dishes. With pounds of green beans and potatoes just dug up, I wanted to create an easy meal that could use all of them.

At my home, vegetable side dishes are quite popular with the entire family – adults and kids. So, I decided to create a rainbow side dish with all these veggies that everyone would love!

For more vegetable side dishes, try my other green bean recipes.

Oct 29 2018

PAMELA’S Slow Cooker Pork Chili is made with BACON and SAUSAGE! This pork chili is one of the easiest crockpot recipes with diced tomatoes and beans! If you’re looking for dinner ideas to make as your family’s favorite comfort food dinners, then this it! Ready in 6 hours on LOW. Serve with shredded cheese and a big piece of crusty bread!

Crockpot Recipes

With the temperatures feeling like single digits, I’ve been craving a nice (big!) bowl of warm chili. But without having to put too much energy into it! That’s when I start looking for dinner ideas that involve my favorite kitchen tool- the crockpot.

I decided to up my chili game one notch and create Pamela’s Pork Chili filled with bacon and sausage! Doesn’t it look delicious? It tastes it too!

Oct 17 2018

EASY Halloween Guacamole Dip recipe – perfect for healthy Halloween appetizers and party food! This homemade recipe uses fresh avocados and canned diced tomatoes. Provides DIY tutorial on how to make spiderwebs with sour cream!

Halloween Party Food

Are you looking for a spooky dip for your Halloween party? Look no further! You’re going to love this classic guacamole dip with sour cream spiderwebs on top! And don’t worry – this Halloween guacamole dip is easy to make! I even include a spiderweb tutorial video below to follow along!

Halloween Appetizers

If you’re anything like me, then you love guacamole! This homemade guacamole dip is a classic recipe, made with fresh avocados and diced tomatoes. To make it super easy if you’re low on time, the recipe calls for canned diced tomatoes – some you use in the dip, and some you use to decorate the top. I like using RO*TEL diced tomatoes & green chilies because it gives extra flavor.

Sep 05 2018

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EASY Crockpot Pumpkin Chili recipe. This easy slow cooker dinner is healthy made with ground turkey, beans, vegetables and Mexican spices! Add shredded cheddar cheese on top! You can freeze leftovers for your family!

In this Crockpot Pumpkin Chili recipe we have the usual Chili ingredients, but then we’re throwing in pumpkin because whenever you can you should throw pumpkin into any dish. Here’s the great thing about pumpkin, it’s full of great nutrients but hardly changes the taste of meals. It’s an amazing way to make your dinner or pumpkin brownies more healthy and better for you. Who doesn’t want that?

Now I know what you might be thinking.. usually “Mexican” and “Pumpkin” don’t usually go together, but in this recipe they are best friends. They are holding hands, whispering secrets (not about you), planning adventures – they are great pals.

What I’m saying is that you’re going to love this Crockpot Pumpkin Chili! It’s one of our favorite Fall Slow Cooker Meals!

Pumpkin Chili Recipe

This pumpkin chili recipe is so easy to make and only takes 5 hours in your slow cooker! First you’ll want to brown the ground turkey in a pan with the peppers before throwing it in the crockpot. After that, throw all your other ingredients inside!

I love beans in my chili so I had to add both black beans and kidney beans. Also I love using ground turkey for chili as a healthy alternative to ground beef.

So what makes this Chili Mexican? Well we’re going to spice it up with green chiles, salsa verde, cumin and we’re going to throw corn into this! If you want you can even throw avocado, shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream on top when it’s done!

Aug 16 2018

ITALIAN Ham and Turkey Sliders with ROASTED Vegetables on Hawaiian Sweet Rolls! This mini sandwich recipe is so easy to make and makes the perfect meal for dinner, potlucks and party finger foods!

This post is sponsored by Sugardale Foods and SheKnows Media.

You’re going to love these Italian Ham and Turkey Sliders with roasted vegetables! They are the perfect mini sandwich for dinner, potlucks and picnics!

Our family loves sandwiches, especially Italian Sandwiches. For dinner I wanted to do something fun with sandwiches, so I grabbed a pack of Hawaiian sweet dinner rolls and created mini sandwiches with ham, turkey, cheese and roasted mushrooms, peppers and tomatoes!

Aug 15 2018

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BAKED Easy Stuffed Pepper Casserole made with green peppers! This dinner dish uses my Mother’s famous stuffed pepper recipe but I turned it into a casserole to make it quicker and easier. It’s filled with ground beef, green peppers, diced tomatoes, rice and smothered in mozzarella cheese.

Growing up one of my Mother’s favorite meals to make was stuffed peppers. She sure loved making those. Whenever I go back to visit my father I always ask him to think of a meal or two he wants me to make for him and usually always one of his favorites are Mother’s stuffed peppers.

What isn’t there to love about stuffed peppers? Fresh peppers, meat, tomato sauce, rice and mozzarella cheese. Yes, please! The seasonings add so much flavor and you can make it as spicy or mild as you want.

Stuffed Pepper Casserole Recipe

With so many green peppers growing in the garden I wanted to take my usual stuffed pepper recipe but turn it into Stuffed Pepper Casserole. I wanted it have the original taste, but I wanted to throw some more greens in there like spinach.

Plus it’s a great way to get the kids to eat their veggies, almost without them realizing it. Growing your own veggies is a great way to get anyone excited about veggies. Plus, they taste so much better than store-bought! Start with organic plants and you’ll have your own inexpensive supple of organic veggies to fill your meals.

Aug 12 2018

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FRESH Tomato Salsa made with roma tomatoes straight from our garden! This easy HOMEMADE recipe is made in minutes with tomatoes, onion, peppers, cilantro, and red pepper flakes! Friends BEG for me to make this salsa because it’s everyone’s favorite! Serve with Chips or with your next Mexican meal!

This right here is my go to salsa. This Fresh Tomato Salsa wins hearts, it makes bellies happy. It’s a win win situation. We make this salsa all the time to snack on, it’s also one of my most requested recipes to make to bring to get friends houses during the Summer!

Fresh Tomato Salsa Recipe

I think one of the main reasons why people love this Fresh Tomato Salsa much because it’s so fresh. Every single vegetable in this recipe comes straight from the garden. I also try not to pick the tomatoes, peppers and onions until the day of or the day before to really make it SUPER fresh. Nothing beats the taste of home grown tomatoes!

Btw looking for more fresh tomato recipes? Make sure to try my Stewed Tomatoes and Roma Tomato Sauce!

This salsa took me some time to get perfect over the years. Sometimes I would make it and it would be too runny, too chunky, the peppers would be too mushy, the tomatoes would be too whole, the tomatoes would be too smooth. But after summers of practice, I got it. I perfected this Fresh Tomato Salsa recipe! And now I’m here to share it with you!

Aug 10 2018

HOW TO MAKE diced tomatoes recipe from fresh tomatoes. Step by step instructions walk you through the beginning all the way up to freezing or canning them. This is a great way to preserve your garden tomatoes!

It’s raining tomatoes still. A ton of them!

Right now we have a explosion of cherry (hello cherry tomato sauce!), roma (hello roma tomato sauce!) and beef tomatoes of all sizes currently occupying our counter. I love seeing a kitchen full of fresh vegetables but it also gives me a slight overwhelming fear of anxiety because I know I have to go to work on them and start preparing our tomatoes to last the next few months.

We pretty much only buy tomato sauce or tomato products during the months of May and June. July, August and September gives us fresh tomatoes by the basket full while October-April supplies us tomatoes that were canned or frozen months prior.

It’s always a special feeling when its a cold Wintry day and you can still enjoy some fresh tomatoes you grew months prior when the garden wasn’t covered in snow.

Aug 06 2018

Roma Tomato Sauce recipe that requires no peeling or blanching! This is a easy creamy sauce that’s perfect for growing garden tomatoes! Serve on pasta, or use later by canning or freezing.

It’s August so you know what that means, right? Our tomato plants are giving us pounds of tomatoes to pick every day! Usually I collect the week’s tomatoes and spend hours in the kitchen on the weekend making sauces and stewed tomatoes. And of course Fresh Tomato Salsa – what would be a August be without salsa?

My go to favorite tomato sauce is Cherry Tomato Sauce, but this year we only grew Roma tomatoes so I wanted to create a recipe that was 1) easy 2) delicious 3) let the roma tomato taste shine! Let me introduce you to Roma Tomato Sauce!

May 25 2018

The BEST 100 Cherry Tomato Recipes! This includes EASY to make appetizers, salads, pasta sauces, meat dishes and casseroles! Make sure to save this post for garden season!

It’s almost the start of tomato season – are you as excited as I am? As you start picking cherry tomatoes by the basket, I wanted to share my favorite cherry tomato recipes so you’re prepared!

First, let’s start with my readers favorite recipes: cherry tomato sauce and slow cooker cherry tomatoes. People can’t get enough of these 2! Try these first… especially the sauce, it’s delicious!

The Best Cherry Tomato Recipes

I broke then down into a few categories below: appetizers, basic dinner recipes, dinners with meat, salad and pasta recipes.

Cherry Tomato Appetizers

Caprese Salad Skewers

Cherry Tomato Relish

Vegetable Bowl Cheese Dip

Caprese Bites With Balsamic Drizzle

Greek Opa Dip

Balsamic Roasted Tomatoes

Mini Caprese Bites

Cherry Tomato Mozzarella Salad With Toasted Pine Nuts

Goat Cheese Brushetta

Bacon and Boursin Stuffed Tomatoes

Antipasto Skewers

Guacamole Stuffed Cherry Tomatoes

Chip and Guacamole Bites

Tomato Tulips

Apr 18 2018

EASY Mexican Arugula Salad with Olive Oil dressing! This simple salad recipe is healthy and includes Arugula, Spinach, Tomatoes, Corn and a Olive Oil/Lime/Cumin dressing to give it a Mexican taste! This is a perfect side salad but could easily turn into a main course if you add chicken to it.

I love this Mexican Arugula Salad! The olive oil/lime juice dressing that coats the arugula greens, tomatoes and corn leaves me craving this salad for lunch and dinner. I love Mexican flavored dishes, so the lime, cumin and dash of red pepper flakes gives this such a burst of flavor making this a exciting salad!

Healthy Recipe

With the weather turning to Spring and Summer (it was 70 degrees this weekend!) I’m taking a step back from hot soups for lunch and instead am craving something fresh and crunchy.

What’s growing in the garden dictates our meals, so I’m looking forward to picking our fresh vegetables, dicing them up and having a big bowl of salad for lunch. And what’s even better is there no time waiting for lunch or dinner to be heated, this Mexican Arugula Corn Salad is made within minutes.

Mar 07 2018

PRETTIEST Cheese Dip ever! MEXICAN Vegetable Bowl MONTEREY JACK Cheese Dip! This easy dip recipe is made with grated Monterey Jack cheese and Mexican spices! Cover the top with chopped up vegetables to make the most beautiful homemade dip! This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Mission®. All opinions are entirely my own.

Cheese lovers, this dip is calling your name! This Vegetable Bowl Monterey Jack Cheese Dip is made with Monterey Jack cheese, which is perfect for 2 reasons. First, Monterey Jack cheese melts beautifully, it’s one of the best melting cheeses in my opinion, so it makes a perfect cheese for dip. Secondly, when you add a little seasoning and spice, it’s a great cheese to use for Mexican inspired dishes, like this cheese dip!

I got to thinking about what makes the perfect dip. It needs to be cheesy, creamy and full of flavor. But it also needs to have perfect partners in crime, in this case Mission Organics® Blue Corn Tortilla Chips and vegetables! Instead of putting the vegetables on the side, I decided to include them in the dip to make a Vegetable Bowl Cheese Dip!

Feb 25 2018

HEALTHY Tuna Cucumber Tomato Salad with olive oil dressing! This super easy salad recipe is a Summer favorite! I love using fresh tomatoes, cucumber and onions from the garden! It’s completely dairy free too! This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Blue Harbor.

This Tuna Cucumber Tomato Salad is the perfect fresh Summer salad. Or if it’s not summertime, then it’s the perfect close your eyes and pretend it’s Summer salad! It’s one of my favorite picnic side dishes! It includes a few garden favorites; tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion and fresh parsley so it’s ripe with flavor. It also includes Albacore tuna which has a delicious, mild and clean flavor. Trust me, you’re going to love it!

Tuna Cucumber Tomato Salad Recipe

It’s still Winter here in NYC and I feel like we’ve had a colder than average last few months. I’m sick of wearing my big Winter coat and pushing the stroller through the windy streets. To comfort my need for wishing for a warmer day, I made this Summer feeling salad that has me dreaming of picking tomatoes in our vegetable garden.

Feb 20 2018

Easy recipe for the best tri color pasta salad! This is the perfect Summer time salad that uses Italian dressing and fresh vegetables!

The great thing about pasta salad is once you have the basics of pasta, salad dressing, herbs – the vegetables are really up to you. There needs some type of tomatoes (I prefer halved grape tomatoes). There needs to be celery chopped up. What else? Well that’s up to you. You can add carrots. You can add onions. You can add broccoli. You can add chopped up cauliflower. You can can add black olives (yum!).

Mushrooms are always a hit too, especially when they get marinated by the salad dressing. Peas, corn, sundried tomatoes, chopped up kale – throw in whatever you like. To finish it all, you need some type of cheese to sprinkle all over, I like to add some shredded mozzarella. How do you like your pasta salad?

You can make your pasta salad with a wide variety of noodles, so use what you like. I’ve been making our pasta salad with tri color rotini pasta. The extra color kick of this pasta makes it special in my opinion. Bow ties and penne pasta are great too!

Finally, pasta salad is a favorite because you can make it advance. You want it chilled, so all the pasta and vegetables pick up that salad dressing taste. Plus when it’s a hot summer day, a little chilled pasta salad will bring your spirits up. You can make this a few hours in advance, or even the day before. If I have leftovers, I will eat it for a few days after. The celery stays crunchy, I love that.

So go ahead, let’s make it feel like summer and make some tri color pasta salad.

Feb 13 2018

HEALTHY Roasted Vegetable Sandwich is a hoagie filled with roasted veggies! This easy, healthy recipe includes mushrooms, green peppers, tomatoes, potatoes and green beans thrown on a sub roll with melted cheese on top! Make this simple meal for dinner, lunch or cut up into mini sandwiches for appetizers!

What I love about roasted vegetables is that it’s plug and play. I am using mushrooms, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, potatoes and green beans in this recipe because they’re my favorite and they’re in season veggies from the garden but you do you. Want to add onions, broccoli or squash? Go for it. Ready to get your hoagie on?

If you loved my Italian Ham and Turkey Sliders, you’re going to love these Roasted Vegetable Sandwiches!

Best Vegetables to Roast

Sep 18 2017

EASY, SLOW COOKER Cherry Tomatoes recipe! This healthy cherry tomatoes crockpot recipe is ready in 5 hours! Serve these as a side dish, or they make a great sauce on pasta for dinner! You can preserve by canning or freezing them! I love serving them as a Thanksgiving comfort food side dish alongside green beans!

If you haven’t noticed from my past few recipes, I’m kinda obsessed with my slow cooker right now. With a new baby and a garden in full harvest our slow cooker has been saving us (and my sanity!).

August and September is always tomato season and we’re left with baskets filled with beautiful tomatoes, ranging from cherry, beef and roma varieties. My favorite cherry tomato recipe is this creamy sauce, but I wanted to try something new with them so I threw them in the slow cooker and hoped for delicious results!

Slow Cooker Tomato Recipe

The verdict? They’re AMAZING! At first taste my husband said “These tomatoes are something!”. They sure are!

Did I mention this recipe is EASY? All you need to do is throw the cherry tomatoes into the slow cooker with a onion, olive oil and salt. Give them a stir and let the crockpot do the rest of the work. After 5 hours, the tomatoes will cave in, releasing their sweet juices and you’ll have delicious Slow Cooker Cherry Tomatoes to serve!

Jul 19 2017

10 MINUTE Brussels Sprouts Quinoa Rice dish! This EASY clean eating recipe is made with Minute Rice and served with fresh Brussels Sprouts and cherry tomatoes! This wholesome meal is gluten free and vegetarian – make it for a work lunch or easy dinner!

Who knew that once you had a baby you immediately forgot to feed yourself. On the first day home I already found myself looking at the clock at 5PM and remembering I never ate lunch. After this repeated for a few days, along with 3 hour sleep nights, I knew I was going to have to change some things and make sure I was getting the calories and nutrients needed for baby and me.

So I opened up the cabinet and pulled out a couple cups of Minute Ready to Serve. Then I opened up my refrigerator and pulled out Brussels Sprouts and tomatoes. In 10 minutes I had a delicious lunch ready to serve, along with leftovers for the next day. High 5 to Mom for making a wholesome, yummy lunch – 10 Minute Brussels Sprouts Quinoa Rice!

The Minute® Ready to Serve Organic Red Quinoa and Brown Rice with Garlic only takes 1 minute to make which is amazing. It’s a perfect solution for a fast lunch when trying to eat better. While the rice is cooking, throw the Brussels Sprouts in a small pot of water to boil to soften them up so you can easily cut them up. While they’re boiling, chop up your tomatoes too. Once the Brussels Sprouts are done, drain them, and throw everything together in a bowl. Just like that, your 10 Minute Brussels Sprouts Quinoa Rice is ready to be served!

Jun 27 2017

Slow Cooker Tomato Cheese Dip is a creamy easy to make dip that uses fresh tomatoes, peppers and Velveeta cheese! This simple homemade recipe is ready in 2 hours in the slow cooker and perfect to serve with tortilla chips for your next party! We especially love this dip for Mexican meals! This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Mission®. All opinions are entirely my own.

We just planted our tomato plants last weekend and already I’m dreaming up tomato recipes to make in a few months. Remember I said we were going to plant less tomatoes to make the garden easier on us this year (hi baby! arriving soon!)? Well we didn’t. We’re going to have a whole lot of tomato plants, so I got to thinking about my Creamy Cherry Tomato Sauce and how I could use that method to create a slow cooker tomato recipe.

For this delicious dip recipe, we’re throwing fresh tomatoes, sweet peppers, salt and pepper in the slow cooker and then adding in cheddar cheese to make it extra creamy. This is the perfect summer dip recipe because it’s easy to make, uses fresh vegetables and tastes delicious dipping tortilla chips into!

What I really love about this recipe is that it tastes so fresh because you’re using real fresh ingredients. Summer time is the perfect time to pick garden ripe tomatoes, the sweetest peppers and a few jalapeno peppers to slice and garnish on top. Besides the cheese, I can grab all these ingredients straight from the garden and throw them right into the slow cooker!

Easy Chicken Tortilla Soup

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Roasted Cantaloupe Salad

Slow Cooker Green Beans and Tomatoes

Vegetable Side Dishes

Pamela’s Slow Cooker Pork Chili

Crockpot Recipes

Halloween Guacamole Dip

Halloween Party Food

Halloween Appetizers

Crockpot Pumpkin Chili

Pumpkin Chili Recipe

Italian Ham and Turkey Sliders

EASY Stuffed Pepper Casserole

Stuffed Pepper Casserole Recipe

Fresh Tomato Salsa

Fresh Tomato Salsa Recipe

Diced Tomatoes Recipe

Roma Tomato Sauce

100 Cherry Tomato Recipes

The Best Cherry Tomato Recipes

Cherry Tomato Appetizers

Mexican Arugula Salad

Healthy Recipe

Monterey Jack Cheese Dip

Tuna Cucumber Tomato Salad

Tuna Cucumber Tomato Salad Recipe

Tri Color Pasta Salad

Roasted Vegetable Sandwich

Best Vegetables to Roast

Slow Cooker Cherry Tomatoes

Slow Cooker Tomato Recipe

10 Minute Brussels Sprouts Quinoa Rice

Slow Cooker Tomato Cheese Dip